Recently, developments have been made regarding small sized milk containers. In the past individual milk servings have been in the form of small cardboard milk cartons which are tremendously popular in school cafeterias and the like. However, these cartons form a very bulk waste product with associated space requirements.
In view of the above waste problems, the small individual serving milk cartons have been replaced by plastic pouches which are easily opened by punching a straw through the pouch. The empty pouch requires very little in the way of waste storage space.
As will be appreciated, these pouches must be bulk packaged and the preferred method of packaging is through the use of a much larger plastic bag. However, because of the soft nature of the bag, it is more easily filled when it is trapped within a rigid case with the case then providing support for the bag as it is being loaded.
Current techniques for loading products such as small milk pouches and the like into soft containment bags are either very labour intensive or rely upon complicated machinery which is subject to frequent failure and/or improper feed of the pouches into the bags. To the Applicant's knowledge, there is nothing currently available in the way of a simple efficient loading apparatus for loading products such as small milk pouches into a soft containment bag for the pouches.